CAPITAL PUNISHMENT.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 108, 9 May 1928, Page 9

CAPITAL PUNISHMENT.

EFFECT ON THE MIND. THREE CLASSES OF MURDER ACQUITTING A PRISONER. "Capital punishment stands condemned," said Mr. F. Morton of Wanganui, addressing last evening the Howard League for Penal Reform. It was a reversion to the old and out of date retributive idea. If a man was executed then there was no chance of reformation. In countries where capital punishment had been abolished crime has not increased. There were three classes of murderers, and if capital punishment were to be applied—although he did not believe in it at all—it should only be in the case of a cold-blooded premeditated murder where the criminal was out for blood, in no other case could it be justified. Murders were often committed in a moment of anger, and the perpetrators should be put under some form of restraint. The fear of capital punishment would not deter people whose passions blinded them to everything. Then there was the murderer in drink. The effect of the death sentence on various people laad to be considered, said Mr. Morton. The effect, for instance on the hangman. Could anything be more abominable than the position of the man who had to put a fellow being out of the world. The effect on the jury was lamentable. In trying a prisoner for murder it was always in front of them that a verdict of guilty meant death so they seized on anything that would acquit a prisoner and it meant that a guilty man might escape punishment. The effect on the judge had also to be considered. Then there was the other side of the picture. Innocent men—proved innocent too late —had suffered the death penalty. The punishment could not be wiped out. It was surprising the number of countries that had abolished capital punishment, and as the number of crimes had not increased it showed that capital punishment was not much of a deterrent, and should be abolished in all countries.